


It's Copyrighted

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Other, nb/nb rights! fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 01:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21383908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: She bites the inside of her lip, reluctant to disappoint him. It’s not that she doesn’t understand; she just wants him to clarify.
Relationships: Eighth Doctor/Charley Pollard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	It's Copyrighted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sciencebutch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/gifts).

One half hour into the party, Charley Pollard is tipsy, pulling the Doctor along by his elbow, and introducing him to everyone as “the greatest man I’ve ever met—not that the bar’s that high, mind.” She’s on a bit of a high from the chatter and the clusters of people, the liberal sparkle of champagne, the gleaming mansion behind her spilling revels into the night. She doesn’t notice until past midnight that though the Doctor has eaten well and hasn’t touched a drink, he’s looking progressively queasier with every word she says.

She sobers up as best she can, dragging him out to the front lawn where she finally allows him to come to an uncharacteristically dejected standstill. He smiles tightly, not quite looking at her.

“Back to the TARDIS, then?” she asks, a tad mournful. It’s glowing, bright, and rich here; it’s Paris, it’s 1925, and it’s decadent. Gertrude Stein has just released a new novel; John Des Passos has just released some new poems; and Ernest Hemingway has just released into F. Scott Fitzgerald, clandestinely, in a restroom nearby. Life and lust are in the air, battling with traces of automobile exhaust, ash, and depression; the stars are swallowed by streetlights smearing yellow across the road.

“Yes,” says the Doctor, not exactly true to form. “I—I’m sorry to pull you away. It’s a beautiful night and you’re in a lovely dress I’m sure, but—”

“I’m fine, Doctor; don’t worry about me.” She’s a bit disappointed to leave so soon, but she can swallow that. She peers up at him, unsatisfied; she knows him well enough to identify displeasure. “What’s bothering you?” she asks bluntly.

The Doctor sighs and draws a hand down his face, smearing the bit of red lipstick he’s applied to his mouth. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he says, turning his back on the vibrant party and striding into the dimness across the street, leaving an irritated and off-balance Charley to stomp after him all the way to their TARDIS. “What is it?” she asks, catching up and eyeing him pointedly as he unlocks the doors.

“I’ll tell you when we’re inside,” the Doctor says, and he sounds more contrite this time. “I really am sorry to pull you away from what looked like a jolly old time—”

“It was,” Charley informs him.

“—But it’s important.”

Charley shuts her mouth, concerned now, and steps into the TARDIS. The Doctor follows her wordlessly and closes the doors behind them. “Sit down, if you’d like,” he says with some relief, pointing vaguely toward one of two armchairs across from each other. Charley picks the plusher one, the one she usually sits in, and tucks her legs up around her. She unstrings the pearls from her neck and regards the Doctor with a bit of worry as he sits down across from her and rests his head on his hand.

“What,” he says, after he’s collected himself a bit, “Did you mean by what you were calling me? What you were introducing me as?”

“Oh,” says Charley, understanding suddenly and sitting bolt upright. “Oh! It was amusing, just that—I’m sorry. I meant to compliment you. I know you don’t exactly want to be brilliant and miraculous and the best person ever; being someone’s favourite man, that’s—a bit of a weight to uphold. I’m sorry if it made you feel like you have to live up to something.” She shakes her head. “Please don’t ever feel that.”

“No,” says the Doctor dully.

Charley blinks. She’d been proud of her apology. “What?”

The Doctor scratches a fingernail into the armchair’s upholstery. _ Chksh, chksh, chksh_. Finally, he speaks. “It’s not that,” he says.

Charley resists the urge to stand and cross to him, take his face in her hands to make him look at her. She softens her voice. “What is it, then?”

The Doctor is silent a while. Then he spits it out.

“I’m not a man.”

Charley sits back in her chair. “You’re... a woman, then?”

“No.” the Doctor looks off to the side. “The way Time-Lords do it, we don’t... fit, exactly, the way humans assume we would, in our bodies.”

Charley rarely, if ever, thinks of the Doctor as alien in any way. She mulls over his words, then meets his eyes; he’s looking at her hopefully.

She bites the inside of her lip, reluctant to disappoint him. It’s not that she doesn’t understand; she just wants him to clarify. Somehow, the Doctor seems to read that in her face.

He rouses himself more fully, gesticulates a bit as he explains. “My next self could look exactly like you, could wear dresses and skirts and brassieres and what-have-you, but I would still feel, on the inside, just like I do now. Some Time-Lords—or rather some Time-Lords’ _ lives_, because even within one person it varies—become very attached to the gender they’re professing. Some of us prefer the term Time-Lady, for instance, as opposed to the more generic Time-Lord. But I’m not—attached. I’m not attached to being a man, Charley. In fact,” he admits, “I don’t entirely want to be one.”

“Oh,” says Charley, when the massive confession she’s awaiting doesn’t come. “Oh, is that _ all_?”

The Doctor gives her a look of poorly-disguised shock. He swallows. “You don’t… mind?”

Charley rubs the bridge of her nose. “Doctor,” she sighs, “Oh,_ Doctor_.” She’s amused, warmed by his vulnerability and his nervousness around her, but his concerns are entirely unfounded. “I don’t mind a whit. In fact, I’d fairly guessed.”

“Guessed?”

“You enjoy—oh, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain without positively vicious stereotypes. But it’s clear that you’ve always been a bit confounded by the conventions of human gender. It’s delightful, Doctor, and not a flaw; it’s one of the many things I applaud you for. Really!” she says, when he doesn’t seem to believe her. She laughs, scoots her chair closer to his, and lays a hand on his knee. “Really.”

The Doctor’s eyes are still comically wide, and very close to hers now. “What?”

“You’re my friend, and you’re dear. But you’re _ daft_,” Charley says, and means it with every fibre of her being, “If you think the way I love you is tied to anything as trite as this. I love you because of your _ mind_, Doctor, and your—”

“My mind?” the Doctor echoes, as if he’s only just realised he has one.

“Well,” says Charley severely, “It’s not because of your fashion sense.”

He pouts. They’re on familiar territory now. “I think I look dashing!”

“Yes,” Charley laughs, “You do. But,” she takes her hand from his knee and meets his eyes seriously, “Doctor, I’m a human—”

“I’m aware—”

“So I don’t do it all like you Time-Lords can. But I wear trousers more often than not, and I go by, of all things, _ Charley _—so I think, if it all really is just a wibbly-wobbly mess, I’m somewhere in the middle, too.” She smiles at him. “Like you.”

“Wibbly-wobbly,” the Doctor repeats. “I like that phrase.”

“It’s copyrighted,” Charley informs him, then breaks into a laugh. She’s serious again, though, in a moment. “I’m sorry for foisting an unwelcome term on you,” she says. “I won’t do it again. And,” she blushes as the Doctor puts his hand on hers, “Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m always honest with you, Charley,” the Doctor says, half-smiling cryptically and giving her hand a squeeze.

“And _ I’m _ always honest with _ you_. So,” she stands, keeping his hand in hers, “To that end, I wish to submit a proposition.”

“Oh?” The Doctor rises with her and raises his eyebrows. 

“Yes. We return to that simply_ electric _ party, arm and arm as we were before. If you want to.”

“I do,” says the Doctor, his eyes lighting up. He pulls her into a hug, which she deepens. “Thank you,” he repeats, his voice muffled by her hair.

Charley pulls back to stare up at him. “Promise me one thing,” she demands, both hands on his chest. She leans closer. “No more silly secrets like this. If I bother you, you tell me. Just like I do for you. We’re friends,” she says, resisting the urge to kiss the smudged lipstick off his face. “It’s what friends do.”

The Doctor winces. “I’ll do my best,” he says, then softens. “I will. And let me promise you one more thing.”

Charley tilts her head. 

“I love you, too,” the Doctor murmurs. “Exactly the same. For your mind, for your heart, and, yes—even for your fashion sense.”

“Then, with that in mind,” says Charley loftily, ignoring how that aforementioned heart is tap-dancing frantically in her chest, “The next time we leave this TARDIS, _ I _ wear the suit, and you,” she pokes him lightly, “Wear the dress.”

The Doctor grins. “I’d like that very much.”

“I’m glad,” says Charley. “I like _ you _ very much.”


End file.
